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Mozilla Software Technology

Mozilla Thunderbird Outlines Plans For 2019: Addressing UI Lags, Performance Issues; Improved 3rd-Party Email Integration, Encryption Usability (mozilla.org) 115

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
For years, Mozilla has largely neglected development of Thunderbird, an email client it owns. But the company, which grew its team to eight staff last year, says it plans to address most of the issues that users have complained about and add six more people to Thunderbird staff this year, it said in a blog post. In the blog post Wednesday, the company said: Our hires are already addressing technical debt and doing a fair bit of plumbing when it comes to Thunderbird's codebase. Our new hires will also be addressing UI-slowness and general performance issues across the application. This is an area where I think we will see some of the best improvements in Thunderbird for 2019, as we look into methods for testing and measuring slowness -- and then put our engineers on architecting solutions to these pain points. Beyond that, we will be looking into leveraging new, faster technologies in rewriting parts of Thunderbird as well as working toward a multi-process Thunderbird.

[...] For instance, one area of usability that we are planning on addressing in 2019 is integration improvements in various areas. One of those in better Gmail support, as one of the biggest email providers it makes sense to focus some resources on this area. We are looking at addressing Gmail label support and ensuring that other features specific to the Gmail experience translate well into Thunderbird. We are looking at improving notifications in Thunderbird, by better integrating with each operating system's built-in notification system. By working on this feature Thunderbird will feel more "native" on each desktop and will make managing notifications from the app easier.

The UX/UI around encryption and settings will get an overhaul in the coming year, whether or not all this work makes it into the next release is an open question â" but as we grow our team this will be a focus. It is our hope to make encrypting Email and ensuring your private communication easier in upcoming releases, we've even hired an engineer who will be focused primarily on security and privacy.
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Mozilla Thunderbird Outlines Plans For 2019: Addressing UI Lags, Performance Issues; Improved 3rd-Party Email Integration, Encry More

Mozilla Thunderbird Outlines Plans For 2019: Addressing UI Lags, Performance Issues; Improved 3rd-Party Email Integration, Encry

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  • Thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DaMattster ( 977781 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @11:11AM (#57892182)
    It's good to read that Mozilla is re-committing to development of Thunderbird. I happen to like Thunderbird and use it daily. Yes, it's UI can be clunky at times and it does need some work, but the bottom line, is that it is still better than M$ Outlook.

    • Re:Thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @11:27AM (#57892270)
      And infinitely better than Google's horrible, completely unusable GMail "UI". For people who want an open source, Outlook-style drag-and-drop front-end for GMail, Thunderbird has been the way to go for a long time, but it has been plagued by the slow downs and other problems lately that are mentioned in TFS. Glad to hear they've acknowledged this and are at least considering fixing the issues.

      • Re:Thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dysmal ( 3361085 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @11:38AM (#57892346)

        Am I the only one that expects Mozilla to start removing buttons and bricking popular extensions like they did in FF and find new and exciting ways to make T-Bird a clone of GMail?

        As a long time Mozilla user (since before T-Bird and FF split from the Mozilla suite), I'm glad to see them putting some effort into this project again but it's hard to trust these crack heads!

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by u801e ( 1647927 )

          As a long time Mozilla user (since before T-Bird and FF split from the Mozilla suite), I'm glad to see them putting some effort into this project again but it's hard to trust these crack heads!

          Well, if they really mess up Thunderbird, I can always switch back to Seamonkey [seamonkey-project.org].

        • No, because of it's one great feature, Mozilla doesn't care about it. There are what, eight people in the team, all of them probably developers who care deeply about Thunderbird, and not a bunch of we-know-what's-best-for-you UX wankers and user empowerment executives and sales and marketing managers and Asa Dotzler and all the other crap that's turned Firefox into what it is today.

      • ...better than Google's horrible, completely unusable GMail "UI"...

        While I also "hate" GMail's interface, I acknowledge the fact that others may see no problem with it. To this end, I ask that Google makes the visibility of [some of] its GMail interface items optional.

        I for one do not need everything crammed up into my face.

        Conversely, with Google's track record, I am not surprised that they can't execute properly. Let's remember that this is a company that has still failed to deliver on a truly workable SMS/Messaging application on its wholly owned Android OS.

      • And infinitely better than Google's horrible, completely unusable GMail "UI".

        That's a matter of personal preference. I've been a long time user of both and while I don't love the Gmail UI, I generally find it more practical than I do the Thunderbird UI most of the time. Plus it has the HUGE advantage of being the same and available from any computer anywhere. This may or may not matter to you but it is a big benefit to me.

        I've always wanted Thunderbird to give me a compelling reason to use it more than I do but it's just stagnated for so long I moved on for most of my workflow. I

    • Is there any other free mail client that works (better)? Web clients just suck. Nothing like entering an entire email and then losing focus when you backspace at the end, thus triggering browser back-history.

      • Re: Thoughts (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I'm completely with you on the "webmail UI sucks" thing, but come on, major webmail providers save your email as a draft within seconds when you stop typing. Complain about something worthwhile please.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chrish ( 4714 )

        Every year or so, I go looking for a Thunderbird replacement, and every year or so, I end up back at Thunderbird. I don't even do anything weird with it, I just use it for email.

        All of the other free/open source email clients are awful in one fatal way or another. They've mostly all been abandoned for years, presumably because webmail (Gmail, or ProtonMail, or whatever) got "good enough", or people are just using their phones.

        Mailbird and Mailspring are sort-of promising, but they don't have local spam filt

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Let's hope they're just going to fix it, and not try to "improve" it like they did with firefox, or google did with gmail.

    • I havn't really found an email client for PC that I really like. Oddly enough email from my Phone is much easier then via the PC most of the time. Takes less time to load up and emails render correctly, and send out. Currently I will actually opt for the Web Interface over the actual application.

      • >"I havn't really found an email client for PC that I really like. "

        Have you tried Claws? It is powerful, local, loads instantly, operates very fast, very configurable, very keyboard friendly (although fully GUI), and has lots of nice features. Plugins allow it to do spell checking, view HTML, encrypt, handle TNEF, antispam, scripting, calendar, and lots of other nice things.

        Although it doesn't compose HTML Email, but I think of that as a FEATURE. I have 150 people using it at work, and it really does

  • Crypto (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

    What we really need is for the major webmail platforms to implement GPG in a way that is basically transparent to users. Doesn't have to be perfect, just better than nothing and off those of us who do want perfection the opportunity to use a really secure dedicated client.

    • There's a very strong argument to be made that if you really require GPG, you shouldn't be using one of the major webmail platforms in the first place, given the companies who own and provide them.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Sure. What I'm saying is that even imperfect use of GPG is better than no GPG, and widespread adoption would likely lead to some decent implementations in popular clients anyway.

        Maybe GPG isn't the right software. It is a bit clunky for ordinary users.

        • OpenPGP/GPG has two advantages. It is pretty much the only encryption mechanism that doesn't depend on how messages are stored or transported. A GPG encoded message is just as secure going through E-mail as it is via Facebook, SMS, Signal, Telegram, a file on a FTP site, or a file on a USB flesh drive. I can put files on a public Amazon S3 bucket encrypted for another person fetching them , and know that the data will be protected.

          Another advantage is the WoT. Yes, you can use a CA as a trusted introduc

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          The "imperfect" use of crypto is what allowed telcos and OS wide open to the NSA and GCHQ.
          Find some people with skills and work on crypto thats is GUI friendly and is actually "crypto".

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            It won't stop anyone persistent, but it will frustrate bulk surveillance. The goal is to make mass spying more expensive, to the point at which it becomes impractical.

    • That would go against their goal of scanning everything.

    • What we really need is for the major webmail platforms to implement GPG in a way that is basically transparent to users.

      Several problems with that statement.
      1) GPG like most other end-to-end public key encryption requires substantial maintenance and knowledge on the parts of the end users to be properly effective. Good luck explaining proper public/private key maintenance to my technologically impaired mother.
      2) There appears to be no way to reconcile ease of use with security to a degree acceptable to a non-paranoid non-technical user
      3) Using GPG on a webmail system pretty much defeats the entire point of such encryption s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      What we really need is for the major webmail platforms to implement GPG in a way that is basically transparent to users. Doesn't have to be perfect, just better than nothing and off those of us who do want perfection the opportunity to use a really secure dedicated client.

      How would that give any meaning? Like they create a GPG key for every user@gmail.com, you query gmail.com for it and encrypt to that key and gmail gives the user the encrypted message and the key to unlock it. If you talk to a fake gmail.com to find the key the content is compromised. If the account in compromised, so's the key. If gmail itself is compromised, it has the key and can simply decrypt it themselves. The only way it's secure is if you contact the correct gmail.com and neither the server nor acco

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There are 2 new(?) standards that make it pretty painless.One is Autocrypt (requires only the mail clients to support it), the other is Web Key Directory/Web Key Service. I think mail providers can implement WKS.
      Thunderbird (via enigmail) supports both. And I think K9 supports them too.
      1. https://autocrypt.org/
      2. https://wiki.gnupg.org/WKD

    • >"What we really need is for the major webmail platforms to implement GPG in a way that is basically transparent to users."

      I couldn't agree more. But it needs to be standards that work on all Email, not just webmail. Encryption is just a nightmare of complexity for "normal users" when it comes to Email. There are "solutions" now for just certain platforms, which make them not really standards and hostile to anyone not using those platforms.

      OpenPFP/GPG is as close as we have to this. But it is not eas

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Nobody wants to give content away to the next PRISM.
      Thanks to PRISM people now want and know to try for "perfect".

    • Google was working on this a few years ago with the e2email project, but eventually canceled it--erm, I mean, moved it out to "community support." While I know that a lot of people think it was because it would get in the way of advertising, the project included a brutally honest threat assessment [github.com]. I use it as an example of a thorough threat analysis as it's fairly lengthy but covers just one browser extension, not an entire browser, OS, or networking environment.

  • looks like problems ahead (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @11:21AM (#57892234)

    When Mozilla spoke of bettering Firefox for the last years, the result for me was to revert to Seamonkey. Thunderbird was not affected by the "betterment" because it has been layed aside for some years now by Mozilla. How come that I read this announcement as a clear sign of "Danger, Will Robinson!"?

  • How about fixing the logo so it doesn't look like a blue wig on a planet?

  • Can they fix it so it doesn't lose connection with my mail server so often? I'm tired of having to restart it all of the time!

  • Don't break it! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fuzi719 ( 1107665 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @12:12PM (#57892560)
    I've used Thunderbird forever. I use it to access my Gmail account (IMAP) and have had no issues with it. I also have used the Lightning integration to access my Google Calendar successfully for many years. I couldn't live without them. My only issue is with the Thunderbird team breaking so many extensions every time they update.

  • 1. An option, in about:config, that says DO NOT SEND ME A COPY WHEN I HIT REPLY ALL. No, you're wrong, a lot of us do not want that copy.
    2. The bug in addressing. When you have a list of recipients, and you go to delete one (say, from your reply all), and you highlight it with the cursor and accidentally go up one, it *adds* a blank line.
    3. Tabbing in addressing is broken. I can tab back from subject to the last person, but then, if I hit back tab again, it does *not* go up to the previous recipient.

  • More and more of our customers are switching to Outlook, so it's a pain to train people to save the file and run tnef at the command line. Yes, it's proprietary, but Microsoft is pushing it hard so the problem is just going to get worse.

    • Re:Are they finally going to support winmail.dat? (Score:5, Informative)

      by snapsnap ( 5451726 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @12:39PM (#57892714)

      There's an add-on named LookOut (fixed version) for Thunderbird that handles attachments form Microsoft. I work for a company that is now doing some vendor work for Microsoft, so we had to either switch to Outlook or find a solution that worked with a standard email client. Fortunately, that add-on exists and was recently fixed.

    • >"More and more of our customers are switching to Outlook, so it's a pain to train people to save the file and run tnef at the command line. Yes, it's proprietary, but Microsoft is pushing it hard so the problem is just going to get worse."

      We had the same nightmare when using Claws.... until Claws developers added a nice plugin (years and years ago) to handle those horrible TNEF things. I *hate* such "defacto" standards like what MS did with TNEF!

  • ISO8601 date format? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rnturn ( 11092 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @01:09PM (#57892884)

    It'd sure be nice if they'd make that an option again. Would it kill them to allow users to set that as the displayed date/time format without making them jump through bizarre hoops of setting that up via specifying some decidedly non-intuitive locale? Recent versions have made even jumping through those hoops all but impossible. The developer input on the T-bird discussion forums seems to want to blame the removal of this format on external groups responsible for defining locales. (So... the buck stops over there, eh?) Come on, folks... Make it an "advanced" feature. Warn us about "voiding our warranty". But, shees, make it an option. (I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm part of a small minority, but I'd like to have all the Linux utilities that output timestamps include an option to use "yyyy-mm-dd" for the dates.)

    • Re:ISO8601 date format? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @06:21PM (#57895038)

      >"But, shees, make it an option. (I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm part of a small minority, but I'd like to have all the Linux utilities that output timestamps include an option to use "yyyy-mm-dd" for the dates.)"

      You are not a small minority on Slashdot, I suspect. I know, for one, I wish ALL DATES were yyyy-mm-dd. It is the ONLY date format that actually makes sense. mm-dd-yyyy and dd-mm-yyyy are absolutely crazy. And because half the world uses one and half uses the other, it makes trying to determine what something like 08-03-2018 is, impossible. And, really, I think that with a push, most non-technical users would quickly see the advantage and adapt to it without much pain.

      The ONLY thing worse was post Y2K systems that still used a F'ing 2 year date, then you end up with something like 10-09-11. What the F*** date *is* THAT??!!! And yes, I have had to put up with such junk!!!!!! (Can you tell?)

  • Firefox thrashes my hard drive until it is maxed out at 100% then promptly crashes. Much of the world has not replaced their aging equipment with SSDs, something in my perception is completely lost on Firefox developers. All of which are probably using high-end machines.

    Don't forget the common man. Something I'm afraid many developers are far too ready to do.

    • Firefox thrashes my hard drive until it is maxed out at 100% then promptly crashes.

      Heh, yeah, I used to keep four years' worth of email in my inbox, too, and I never compacted my folders, either.

  • Just about every broken thing in thunderbird was fixed by extensions. Then they broke the API without bothering to fix ANY of the things those extensions addressed.

    The support board is full of "solved" problems (i.e. fixed by an addon) that are no longer solved. But they're archived, so you can't even re-open them and mark them as open issues.

    Fucking idiots

    The whole thing was managed by morons.

  • Maybe too little, surely too late. I'me more or less done migrating away from Thunderbird, which I have used for more than a decade.

    Thunderbird has been getting steadily worse for some time now but the last few releases made me seriously reconsider.
    Notable problems are the massive memory leaks and god only knows what it is doing instead of responding to the user.

    I've deleted ~/.thunderbird and recreated all my accounts en the problems immediately reappeared. It has become completely unusable at this point.

    L

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